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History of research work Despite its practical importance, the problem of the axially compressed cylinder on local supports has not been studied widely until recently. The rst scientic studies were concerned with the stress distribution above a local support, and these began with supports that applied forces normal to the shell (Bijlaard 1955). Local supports that apply meridional forces were more difcult to analyse, so this development came later (Kildegaard 1969; Gould et al. 1976; Rotter 1982; Li 1994; Li and Rotter 1996). These linear stress analyses could dene the approximate stress state in the shell, but it was difcult to determine what failure criteria should be used. In addition, there was uncertainty about the effects of geometric nonlinearity and the role of geometric imperfections in causing failure above local supports. Studies of the buckling strength of axially compressed cylinders were dominated by uniform compression (Yamaki 1984), and only a few studies explored the effects of slight variations from a uniform stress state, such as global bending (Saal 1982) or axial compression along an axial strip (Hoff et al. 1964). Design recommendations (NASA SP8007 1968; ECCS 1988) did not attempt to address the local support problem. A few simple empirical treatments were used to propose design concepts (Bodarski et al. 1985; Gorenc 1985; Hotala 1986, 1996; Samuelson 1986, 1987, 1990; Samuelson and Eggwertz 1992), but these were neither based on rigorous buckling calculations nor on experiments. Rationally based design proposals have only been developed recently. This chapter outlines these recent developments. Theoretical studies of the nonlinear buckling behaviour have been undertaken during the past 10 years by several research groups. The buckling behaviour has been found to be quite complicated, with many parameters inuencing the buckling strength. Initial work on the subject started in the late 1980s, by performing comprehensive nonlinear numerical parametric studies comprising unstiffened and various forms of stiffened steel cylinders (Fig. 3.2). In the Graz investigations, the cylindrical shell was given xed dimensions (R/t = 500, H /R = 2, standard steel grade S 235) and rested on just four local exible supports whose width was varied (Figs 3.2(a) and 3.3(a)) (Guggenberger 1991, 1992). At the same time, research

(a)

(b)

(c)

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d = 2b

Figure 3.3 Alternative local support boundary conditions: (a) exible support; (b) rigid support; (c) exible support with additional ring at bottom edge; (d) rigid support with additional ring at bottom edge.